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The Professionalization of History
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Clio Chronology
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Dr. Dusty Archives
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HIS 2370 The Discipline of History
Saint Mary’s University
26 November 2008
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1
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The discipine of history has a history. Ancient Greeks such as Herodotus and Thucydides
demonstrated a fundamentally different view of history than historical writers in subsequent
centuries. In each generation or era, such as the medieval period, the Renaissance or the
Enlightenment, historical writers reveal shifts in the understanding of history. In the nineteenth
century, history began to emerge as a profession when departments of history formed in the
universities of Europe and North America and began to train students in methods, approaches
and research in history. This paper examines the rise of history as a profession and how the
creation of university departments, historical societies and journals shaped the discipline itself.
In some eras, such as the 1500s or 1600s readers looked to history to provide models or
examples of virtuous conduct, military strategy or political leadership. The idea of heroes in
history even persisted through to the early 1800s, but then attitudes among historical writers
began to change. As John Tosh argues
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it was not until the first half of the nineteenth century that all the elements of historical
awareness were brought together in a historical practice which was widely recognized as the
proper way to way to study the past. This … intellectual movement known as historicism …
1
began in Germany and soon spread all over the Western world.
Tosh traces the origin of the historicism to Leopold von Ranke, active at Berlin
Ellipsis
University from 1824 to 1872.2 Ranke explained his approach to history in the preface to his
first published work. “History has had assigned to it the task of judging the past, of instructing
the present for the benefit of the ages to come. To such lofty functions this work does not aspire.
1
John Tosh, The Pursuit of History: Aims, Methods and New Directions in the Study of Modern History, 3rd edn
(London: Longman, 1999), 5.
2
Tosh, Pursuit of History, 5.
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Its aim is merely to show how things actually were (wie es eigentlich gewesen)”. 3 This
quotation from Ranke’s Histories of the Latin and German Nations from 1494 to 1514 is one of
the most famous lines ever written by a historian about the practice of history. But why did it
become such an influential idea?
Ranke believed that historical documents provided the key to understanding the past. He
used the development of language from oral to written form to distinguish between prehistory
and history. “History cannot discuss the origin of society, for the art of writing, which is the basis
of historical knowledge, is a comparatively late invention.”4 Ranke’s emphasis on the written
traces of history would influence generations of historians as they scoured the archives in search
of primary sources such as letters, diplomatic records or diaries.5 But Ranke did not simply
believe in accumulating written historical records and extracting facts and events, instead he
emphasized the “critical analysis” of these sources.6 Thus Ranke has been credited with changing
the nature of historical inquiry by making the discipline of history as rigorous in its methods as
science and yet retaining the “critical and readable” qualities of literary works.7 As George
Iggers has noted: ‘the American Historical Association in 1885 elected [Ranke] as its first
honorary member, hailing him as ‘the father of historical science’”.8
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3
Leopold von Ranke, Histories of the Latin and German Nations from 1494 to 1514 as cited in Tosh, The Pursuit of
History, 5 [OR Leopold von Ranke, Histories of the Latin and German Nations from 1494 to 1514 as cited in ibid.]
Ibid
4
Leopold von Ranke, Universal History: The Oldest Historical Group of Nations and the Greeks, ed. and G.W.
Prothero (New York: Harper, 1885), ix.
5
George G. Iggers, “The Professionalization of Historical Studies and the Guiding Assumptions of Modern
Historical Thought,” in A Companion to Western Historical Thought, ed. Lloyd Kramer and Sarah Maza (Oxford:
Blackwell, 2005), 226.
6
Iggers, “Professionalization”, 227.
7
Shortened
footnote
J. D. Braw, “Vision as Revision: Ranke and the Beginning of Modern History,” History & Theory 46: 4
(December 2007): 45-6. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed November 3, 2008).
8
Iggers, “Professionalization”, 230.
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Bibliography
Bibliography
listed
in
alphabetical
order
Braw, J. D. “Vision as Revision: Ranke and the Beginning of Modern History.” History
& Theory 46:4 (2007): 45-60.
Iggers, George G. “The Professionalization of Historical Studies and the Guiding
Assumptions of Modern Historical Thought.” In A Companion to Western
Historical Thought, ed. Lloyd Kramer and Sarah Maza. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.
Ranke, Leopold von. Universal History: The Oldest Historical Group of Nations and the
Greeks. Edited and translated by G.W. Prothero. New York: Harper, 1885.
Tosh, John. The Pursuit of History: Aims, Methods and New Directions in the Study of
Modern History, 3rd edn. London: Longman, 1999.
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